Organic Spotlight: SunGleam Organic

SunGleam Organic is a family run business producing and sourcing organic single-origin nuts for wholesalers, retailers and their own online business, managed by Pierre Roux.

Organic Spotlight: SunGleam Organic

SunGleam Pecan farm in South Africa

Story

The farm became certified in 1994 and began exporting to Europe. SunGleam work with six single-origin nut producers, sourcing everything aside from pecans in their family farm in South Africa. They source nuts from:

The business started in the 1970s when Pierre’s father started by cultivating a forgotten pecan orchard on a farm in South Africa.

- Organic Brazil nuts from Bolivia

- Organic hazelnuts from a Turkish cooperative called Isik Organic

- Organic Almonds from a cooperative in Extremadura, Spain

- Macadamia Nuts produced in South Africa

- Organic Cashew nuts from a farm in Goa.

Mission

Advising Peacan Farmers on Organic Conversion

The Roux family farm works with a range of peakon Famers, giving advice about organic conversion.

Pierre describes how “The issue with tree crops is you have to spend a lot of money in the first two years establishing the orchard, and it takes a lot of time to make money back, so a lot of farms are nervous to commit to converting to organic. So as a successful producer, we can give these farmers the information and guidance they need to give them the confidence to convert to organic.”

Continuing to be pesticide-free

There hasn’t been any pesticides or fertiliser sprayed on the farm since 1980. The farm gets regularly visited by university students to monitor and study the rich soil on the farm.

Truly raw organic

Non-organic nuts are mostly treated and pasteurised to kill E-coli or Salmonella, which denatures the proteins. The process SunGleam use is by airdrying the nuts and naturally and slowly followed by analysis to test for pathogens.

What is the future for SunGleam Organic?

SunGleam has recently changed its packaging to brown paper bags with a 100% compostable lining to keep the nuts fresh, ensuring that sustainability is at the top of SunGleam’s ethos.

To find out more about SunGleam Organic and its products, please click here.

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